


A Bird in Hand

by twicky



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Thanksgiving, Turkey - Freeform, asshole OTP AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 04:58:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5151173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twicky/pseuds/twicky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: 'Shouting match over the last Thanksgiving turkey at the grocery store AU' - the Whouffaldi version. A part of the 'your OTP are both Assholes' series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bird in Hand

“Clara,” said Dave Oswald desperately, “It’s all right, we’ll get another turkey from the shop down the street. Let go of the turkey, sweetie.”

The other member currently engaged in the tug-o-war over the turkey in question blew at a stray lock of grey hair flopping over his sweaty face. “Control you daughter, sir! No child of mine would be allowed to behave so appallingly in public!”

“You leave my dad out of this, you tosser!” shouted the diminutive brunette clutching at the other end of the turkey, as she tugged violently at the dead bird’s plastic-wrapped leg stumps. “And I’d like to see you try knocking anyone up, you dried-up old fart. Is that what the turkey’s for, then?  _Practice?”_

_“_ I will not stand for this blatant display of ageism!” cried the man, at the same time Dave Oswald threw up his arms in defeat and allowed his scowling wife to lead him back to their car (where he will spend the next twenty minutes listening to Linda rant un-ironically about her stepdaughter’s unladylike tendencies.)

Clara Oswald paused momentarily in her efforts to shoot the man a disbelieving look. “Seriously, _that’_ s what you’re going to get mad at? I basically accuse you of defiling and desecrating a dead turkey, and the  _age_  thing is what you choose to get upset about? Talk about deep-seated insecurities!”

One particularly vicious wrench from the grey-haired man, and the turkey slipped out of Clara’s hands and into his arms. “I’d like to think the only  _insecure_  thing around here is your piss-weak grip!” He declared triumphantly. He frowned. “Bantering. I’m bantering.” He turned on his heels, and took off on what could only be described as a penguin-esque waddle.

Clara launched herself at the thieving turkey snatcher’s back, wrapping her legs around his upper thighs, and tangling her fingers in his thick, luxuriantly fluffy hair (’luxuriantly fluffy?!  _Seriously_ , Oswald? Focus!’ she reprimanded herself). She pulled at his hair, hard enough to provoke a bellow of pain from the man. ‘ _Yes’_ thought Clara gleefully as he dropped the turkey. But her eyes widened in alarm as she felt her centre of gravity shift, and before she could react she felt herself toppling forward, and man and girl went crashing to the floor.

She could taste blood in her mouth. Below her, with his face pressed against the greasy, linoleum floor, the man groaned loudly. He didn’t attempt to roll Clara off of him, and apart from the few twitches she saw his fingers make, he was still.

Now, Clara Oswald considered herself a nice enough person. Her students at Coal Hill seemed to all like her, and she’d never found herself in want of company. She helped Mrs Dhabi in the unit across from hers take out the trash every Thursday, and she  _always_  gave up her seat on the bus for the elderly-slash-pregnant passengers. But she really,  _really_  needed this turkey. This was the turkey on which her reputation as a Thanksgiving hostess was going to live or die by. And Linda had been snarking at her for  _weeks_  about her apartment’s suitability for hosting an event of this Importance. (”It’s really no bother to us, dear,” Linda had said, in that aggravating, passive-aggressive tone of voice Clara was so used to having directed at her. “The last time we had turkey at your place, we got a more than decent eyeful of your Swedish boyfriend, before he dumped you  _and_  made off with our turkey in that banged-up blue car of his.”) So screw niceness; this was her turkey, and if  _anyone_  tried to make off with it this year before she could turn it into a golden, stuffed glory of a Thanksgiving centrepiece,  _hell mend them_.

She climbed off the prone form of the man, pausing slightly to hitch up her skirt, before readying herself for the dash towards the turkey, which had rolled and come to a standstill by the dairy section. She’d taken but a single step before she felt a hand close around her ankle. Down she went again, the floor rushing up to meet her, and this time her body took the full brunt of the impact. She laid there with the wind well-knocked out of her, and she waited for the stars to clear from her vision.

She felt a shadow move into the light above her. The man must have crawled over to her after he’d tripped her, and now she was staring into his upside-down face as he leaned over her on all fours.

“ _What the hell are you doing_?” She hissed.

“Repaying the favour.” He retorted.

“I could scream, you know. Bring the security guards down here. How do you think it’ll look to them - me, all small and vulnerable, lying on my back, and big ol’ you with your crazy attack eyebrows and Groundskeeper Willie accent looming over me like some overgrown owl?”

The man scowled, and swivelled his body so that from her perspective his face was now the right-way-up, and he’d backed away from her slightly. He still kept one hand gripped firmly around her ankle, though.

“You’d really sink that low? Bring an upstanding member of society into ill-repute over a turkey?”

Clara scoffed. “Upstanding member? Hardly! A gentleman would have graciously handed over the turkey.  _Not_  get into a juvenile screaming match in the middle of the supermarket!”

“I never said I was a gentleman. And I wish you wouldn’t bring gender into this; it’s a sure sign of an argument otherwise lacking in substance. Anyway, you’re no lady yourself. What was it you said I wanted that turkey for? Seriously, my ears are burning just thinking about it. You’ve got quite the potty mouth on you, haven’t you?”

Clara shifted slightly, and watched with interest as the man’s eyes darted to scan down the length of her body, before quickly returning his gaze to her face. “Some people happen to like my potty mouth.” She said, her voice going slightly husky. A purely coincidental occurrence, she told herself, and not at all done with any specific intentions in mind.

The man let go of her ankle as if burned. He shifted back to sit on his heels, and watched her with an inscrutable expression on his face. At length, he spoke again - 

“Look, let’s just forget this ever happened. I won’t mention to security on my way out that  _you_  were the one who attacked me first,  _or_  the fact that you tried to frame me for assault. I’ll just grab my turkey and be on my merry way - ”

“No, wait,  _hang on_.  _Your_  turkey?”

“ - and you can do as your dad said and find another one elsewhere. Problem solved - ”

“I’m not letting that turkey out of my sight!  _You_ go and find another turkey somewhere else!”

“ - and all parties walk away happy…wait, what? Are you seriously still fighting me for that turkey? Did you not hear a word I just said?”

“As I recall it,  _I_  was the one who grabbed the turkey from the freezer first.  _You_  then came along and said, ‘Pardon me, Miss, but that’s my turkey.’ Literally, that’s all you said, no further explanation, before you tried yanking it out of my hands. If anyone should be scurrying away in shame right now it’s you.”

“That’s not how I recall it.”

“I don’t care how you recall it! I’m sick of this; get out of my way!”

Clara pushed herself up into a sitting position, then stood up, ignoring the slightly woozy feeling in her head. She swayed slightly as she walked towards where she last saw the turkey. She stopped dead in her tracks when she realised that it was no longer on the floor by the dairy section of the freezers.

“Where did the turkey go?”

The man had, by this time, made his way to her side. “Hmm, impressive.”

“No, not impressive.  _Annoying_.”

“No, this is impressive.  _This_  is annoying.” He gestured at her. “But this, this may have just provided us with a fair and equitable solution to our problems. No one gets the turkey, and we all go home empty-handed, and twenty years down the line it turns out we’ve started a new tradition of turkey-less Thanksgiving dinners.”

“You’re nuts.”

“So I’ve been told. Many times by several different people, and across a variety of situations.”

“You’re probably the strangest person I’ve ever met.”

“Not gonna argue with you on that one. The Doctor.” He held out one thin, elegant hand, and flashed her a grin showing sharp, pearly-white teeth. Clara gripped it in her own and gave it a firm squeeze, ignoring the quickening of her pulse that came with the feeling of his warm, dry palm in hers.

“Doctor Who?”

“Clara Who?”

Clara felt the sides of her mouth pull up into an involuntary smile. “Oswald. Clara Oswald. And you?”

“Just the Doctor. So, Clara Oswald, why were you so desperate to get your hands on that turkey?”

She sighed. “The never-ending, uphill battle to convince my family that I’m now a proper Adult and _can_  occasionally function without them poking their sticky beaks into my affairs. You?”

“Ah, my best mate Amy and her husband Rory just had a baby, so I’ve invited the whole lot of them over to mine for Thanksgiving to save them the trouble of having to organise something themselves. And it wouldn’t be a proper Baby’s First Thanksgiving if there wasn’t a turkey, would it?”

Clara crossed her arms in what she hoped was a Super-Casual way. “So your wife sent you out to get the turkey, huh?”

The Doctor laughed, ruffling his grey, curly locks in what Clara thought was a most distracting manner. “Haven’t got a wife. Or a boyfriend. Or a dog. All alone; story of my life.”

Clara chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip, and noted again with interest how  _something_  seemed to flare up in the Doctor’s eyes. “Well, ‘all alone’ seems to be the story of my life as well. Maybe we should, uh, head out for coffee some time. I’ll buy. Let me make it up to you for all those horrible things I said.”

“I’ll hold you to that, Clara Oswald.”

It was at that moment that a shop assistant came walking towards them, pulling a trolley stacked high with plump, plastic-wrapped turkeys behind him. Clara and the Doctor caught each others’ eye, and at almost the same time, burst into helpless, uncontrollable laughter.


End file.
